TINTWISTLE CONSERVATION AREA Character Appraisal
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TINTWISTLE CONSERVATION AREA Character Appraisal Adopted February 2015 TINTWISTLE CONSERVATION AREA Character Appraisal Adopted February 2015 Prepared by: Mel Morris Conservation 67 Brookfields Road Ipstones Staffordshire ST10 2LY CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 1 Consultation SUMMARY OF SPECIAL INTEREST 2 1. LOCATION AND CONTEXT 3 1.1 Location, Topography and Geology 3 1.2 Settlement Plan Form 4 1.3 Statutory Designations 4 1.4 Planning Policy Context 5 1.5 Setting 6 1.6 Archaeological Interest 6 Figure 1 Statutory Designations 2. ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT 7 2.1 Early Development 7 2.2 18th Century Development 7 2.3 19th Century Development 8 Figure 2 Tintwistle Historic Development 3. ARCHITECTURAL AND HISTORIC QUALITY 15 3.1 Key Buildings 15 3.2 Traditional Materials and Details 15 3.2.1 Stone and slate 3.2.2 Watershot masonry 3.2.3 Water tabling 3.2.4 Eaves and gutters 3.2.5 Sloping Eaves 3.2.6 Door surrounds 3.2.7 Lintels & cills 3.2.8 Panelled doors 3.2.9 Stone setts and paving 3.7.10 Boundary walls, gates & railings Figure 3 Spatial Analysis 4. SPATIAL ANALYSIS 19 4.1 Significant Views 19 4.2 Open Spaces 20 4.3 Protected Trees 20 5 NEGATIVE FACTORS 21 5.1 Loss of Boundary Walls 21 5.2 Traffic Signs 21 5.3 Loss of Traditional Windows and Doors 21 6. GENERAL CONDITION OF THE AREA 22 6.1 Buildings 22 6.2 Public Realm 22 7. PROBLEMS, PRESSURES & CAPACITY FOR CHANGE 22 7.1 Stone Slate Roofs 22 7.2 Traffic 22 7.3 Research 23 7.4 Trees 23 7.5 New Development 23 8. DESCRIPTION OF THE AREA 24 Figure 3 Spatial Analysis 8.1 Description - Old Road 25 8.2 Church Street - north side 26 8.3 Area to the south of Church Street 26 Figure 4 Proposed Boundary Revisions 29 9. CONSERVATION AREA BOUNDARY REVIEW 29 9.1 Northern Eastern Boundary 29 9.2 Southern Boundary 30 9.3 Western Boundary 32 9.4 Northern Boundary 10. RECOMMENDATIONS 32 10.1 Monitoring Change - Photographic Record 32 10.2 Recognition of Importance - Local Heritage Assets 32 10.3 Control 32 11. USEFUL INFORMATION AND CONTACT DETAILS 33 Appendix 1 - Street Furniture and Paving 34 Illustrations 29 Bottoms Mill of c. 1820, photographed before demolition in 1864 (courtesy of Glossop & 9 District Historical Society) Tithe map of 1847 (by permission Derbyshire Record Office) 11 Bridge Mill, as seen from the south side of the valley (courtesy Glossop & District 12 Historical Society) Ordnance Survey map of 1882 - by permission Derbyshire Record Office 13 Ordnance Survey map of 1898 - by permission Derbyshire Record Office 13 TINTWISTLE CONSERVATION AREA APPRAISAL INTRODUCTION A conservation area is an area of special architectural or historic interest the character or appearance of which it is desirable to preserve or enhance, designated under section 69 of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990. The Council is obliged by section 71 of the same Act to formulate and publish proposals for the preservation and enhancement of any parts of their area which are conservation areas. The contents of this Conservation Area Appraisal are intended both as a guide for owners and occupiers of buildings within the conservation areas and as a guide for the local planning authority. The contents are a material consideration when determining applications for development, dealing with appeals, or proposing works for the preservation or enhancement of the area. This appraisal document defines and records the special architectural and historic interest of the conservation area & identifies opportunities for enhancement. The appraisal follows the model set out in English Heritage guidance (Guidance on Conservation Area Appraisals 2006). The High Peak area (excluding the Peak District National Park) has 32 designated conservation areas. Tintwistle Conservation Area was first designated in 1995. It was jointly designated by High Peak Borough Council and the Peak District National Park and the boundaries are contiguous. This appraisal is specifically related to the part of Tintwistle which lies within High Peak. Consultation A number of individuals and organisations have been consulted on aspects of this appraisal, including members of Glossop Heritage Trust. The final document will be prepared subject to full public consultation, as set out in the Council’s ‘Statement of Community Involvement’. Both English Heritage and Government guidance recommends the involvement of residents and businesses within conservation areas. The Council will place draft documents on its website, prepare a press release for local papers and distribute a leaflet to all affected local residents and businesses. All comments will be considered in drawing up the final version of the Appraisal. 1 SUMMARY OF SPECIAL INTEREST The village of Tintwistle lies on the northern periphery of High Peak on the north side of the Longdendale valley. It has a high concentration of mid to late 19th century cottages and public buildings lining two roads that meet at the fork of Old Road and Church Street. Although the development of Tintwistle during the 19th century was entirely the result of the development of wool and cotton spinning during the first decades of the 19th century, there is very little surviving evidence of this industry as these were largely displaced by the construction of a network of reservoirs. The distinctive key characteristics of Tintwistle can be summarised as follows; • A linear settlement pattern with a series of unfolding views along the 190- 210 metre OD contours, shaped by the rising ground along Old Road and an undulating topography • Long 19th century terraces of consistent simple detail • From within the settlement, panoramic views of the rolling landform of the high moorland on the southern horizon • Uniform use of evenly coursed Millstone Grit as a building material for walls, boundaries, and floorscape, widespread use of fissile stone slate from the village quarries for roofs, and visual harmony arising from this limited palette • A pattern of piecemeal growth and transformation from a rural setting to a more urban settlement throughout the 19th century • Landmark church and quiet churchyard setting with special character of graves TINTWISTLE CONSERVATION AREA APPRAISAL 2 TINTWISTLE CONSERVATION AREA APPRAISAL 1. LOCATION AND CONTEXT 1.1 Location, Topography and Geology Tintwistle lies 4 kilometres to the north of Glossop, in the lower part of the Longdendale valley. The historic County boundary between Cheshire and Derbyshire followed the River Etherow until 1974 when, during boundary changes and local government re-organization, Tintwistle was moved from Cheshire into Derbyshire. The majority of the village lies within the Peak District National Park, but there is a small segment of the conservation area, in the western part of the village, which lies within the administrative boundary of High Peak Borough Council The village of Tintwistle lies in an upland location, only 200 metres north of the River Etherow and the reservoirs lining the bottom of the Longdendale Valley. The settlement lies at 190-210 metres O.D. on the south-western edge of the Pennines. The Peak District National Park boundary slices through the village running roughly north-south along Arnfield Lane, Bank Brow and Bank Lane. Historically, the valley contained packhorse routes and tracks used for trade across the Dark Peak moorlands. The village of Tintwistle lies on an old saltway leading from the salt trading towns of Cheshire to the east of the country. The drift geology within the river valley is alluvial silts, sand and gravels and the underlying solid geology is Kinderscout Grit, part of the Carboniferous Millstone Grit Series. This creates a distinctive rounded shape to the higher heather moorland, which lies to the immediate north of the village. The quality of the local stone for building led to the establishment of a number of quarries during the 19th century, producing stone for building and roofing slate. The stone slates are unusually thin in the village. The 1841 Census records a large number of stone masons living and working in the village. This landscape is described within the Peak District Landscape Strategy and Action Plan (Peak District National Park, 2009) as within the Dark Peak Western Fringe. The specific characteristics of the immediate landscape are identified as Settled Valley Pastures with industry, rising to Enclosed Gritstone Uplands. The steep slopes of the adjoining Dark Peak give way to lower lying valleys and adjoining floodplains in the valley bottoms of the Dark Peak Western Fringe. Deep and narrow, steep sided cloughs, often a characteristic feature within this sloping ground, carry water that has drained off the moorland summits down into larger rivers, such as the Goyt, Tame and Etherow. One of these cloughs, the Arnfield Brook, lies to the immediate west of Tintwistle. The Etherow is a Reservoir Valley, and this too has distinctive landscape characteristics, which form part of the wider setting of the conservation area; • Interlocking coniferous and mixed plantation woodland with some limited semi-natural woodland • Steep valley slopes, dissected by cloughs 3 • Land largely cleared of settlement during reservoir construction leaving oc- casional isolated gritstone farmsteads • In the Longdendale valley pastoral small fields are bounded by drystone walls The village falls on the edge of the character area called “Settled Valley Pastures”, overshadowed by the open moorland landscape of Featherbed Moss to the north, the name for which is derived from the cottongrass plant. The main street running through the village overlooks the reservoir valley of Longdendale to the south, over which there are far reaching, panoramic views to the hills of Coombes Edge and Whiteley Nab on the distant southern horizon. 1.2 Settlement Plan Form The village is long and linear and tracks the River Etherow.